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Friday, 16 September 2011

You've probably noticed that recently I've not blogged much, and I blame myself for that, I don't really have an excuse. Also, I'm beginning to lack the motivation to blog just about sci-fi, since there's plenty of other better blogs doing the same thing. SO, I'm closing this blog, and moving to new pastures. The new pastures being: a brand new blog, something brand new. I won't be blogging just about TV, I'll also be blogging about: video games, books, iPod games, films, DVDs, and anything else that I care to blog about. The blog will be called:

PROJECT PTEROSAUR

A teensy bit random I know, but I needed something that stands out. Project Pterosaur launches tonight at 6.30pm. GOODBYEEEE!

Tuesday, 13 September 2011

Hello :) Recently, I got in touch with writer of The Girl Who Waited, Tom McRae on Twitter, and secured an email interview with him. So here's the interview!

Q: When you wrote The Girl Who Waited,was it always episode 10?

1) No. It was a 'floating script', which meant it could go anywhere. That's why there's no direct series continuity references in it. We only decided it was ep 10 quite late on.

Q: Did you enjoy writing it more than Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel?

2) I loved writing it but it was a lot of very hard work, so I"m thrilled it's paid off!

Q:

Were you surprised by the extremely positive press reaction?

A:

3) I was absolutely overwhelmed by the press reaction. Obviously, you always HOPE for reviews like that, but to actually GET them is quite breathtaking!

Q:

How much do you know about the series arc?

A:

4) I know pretty much everything now. For ages I insisted that no-one told me who River Song was - I didn't want to know until it was on TV! But after I read The Day Of The Moon I kind of figured it out...

Q:

What's your favorite classic/new Doctor Who story, and why?

A:

5) My favourite ep of all time is Blink. More than any other before or since it broke the mold about what the show can do.

Q:

How did you originally get to writing Doctor Who?

A:

6) RTD asked me to come onto the show shortly after it started. I was very lucky, and also was well known enough at the BBC to be on their list.

Q:

What advice would you give to people who want to be writers?

A:

7) If you want to write - write. Just get on with it. Don't put it off, don't talk about it down the pub - just get on with it an do it. Even if it's crap, keep going and learn how to not write crap. Experience is just as important as natural talent, so start putting the hard work in NOW!

Saturday, 10 September 2011

Next time on Doctor Who it's The God Complex! Here's the next time trailer:

And a clip from Comic Con

DOCTOR WHO: THE GOD COMPLEX airs at 7.10pm on BBC One (UK), 9/8C on BBC America and 8pm on SPACE (Canada) on Saturday 17 September, in Australia on Saturday 24, and in New Zealand on Thursday 6 October.

Sunday, 4 September 2011

So, welcome to the first CULT TELLY ROUND UP, which is exactly the same as before, except this time we're more conservative! :) Here's what's coming up in the next five days:

Doctor Who and Torchwood: Miracle Day- As this week, coverage for Torchwood: Miracle Day and Doctor Who will be done on Thursday and Saturday, this week covering Torchwood: Miracle Day- The Gathering, and Doctor Who: The Girl Who Waited. Look out for an announcment too on Thursday about my The Girl Who Waited coverage.

Merlin series four round-up 2- I did a Merlin series 4 round up back in late June(proving to be the third most popular post on the blog since it started back in mid June) and since then there's been loads of information about the series, so on Wednesday, I'll do another round up.

Episode guides- The Doctor Who episode guides should be finished this week, and I'll make a start on the Torchwood guides this week.

Limited Outnumbered coverage- Episode 2 of series four of Outnumbered airs this Friday, so I'll put a clip up when it arrives.

The overnight ratings for Night Terrors and the consolidated figures for Let's Kill Hitler have been revealed. Here's a report on the Night Terrors overnights courtesy of SFX:

The return of Doctor Who’s old enemies, Ant and Dec, took a chunk out the show’s ratings. Overnight figures show that 5.5 million viewers tuned into the initial screening of Doctor Who “Night Terrors” on BBC1, while Red And Black? on ITV1 pulled in 6.6 million viewers. That knocked Doctor Who into fourth place for the evening, behind The X-Factor (11.1 million) and the second episode of Red And Black? (7.2 million).So, Round One to the Geordies, but the real result will only come when the final consolidated figures (including people who recorded the shows) are published in just over a week. Who was the more obvious of the two to record and watch later, and it was getting time shifts of around 1.5 million earlier in the year. Will that be enough for it to secure third place? That’s a hell of an uphill struggle…The episode is currently number one on the BBC’s iPlayer, and, amazingly, “Let’s Kill Hitler” is still in the Top 10 most viewed chart on the Corporation’s catch up service too.

And Let's Kill Hitler got an impressive 8.1 million for the final figures.

Saturday, 3 September 2011

Next time on Doctor Who, it's The Girl Who Waited! Here's the trailer for the episode:

DOCTOR WHO: THE GIRL WHO WAITED airs on Saturday 10 September on BBC One at 7.15pm, on BBC America and SPACE on the same day at 9/8C and 8pm respectively, on Saturday 17 September on ABC in Australia, and on Thursday 29 September on Prime in New Zealand .

Night Terrors (series 6, episode 9 of Doctor Who) airs tonight, in the UK on BBC One, in the US on BBC America, and in Canada on SPACE. Here's some previews for tonight's episode:

Next Time Trailer

BBC One Trailer

Danny Mays Introduction

NIGHT TERRORS airs at 7pm on BBC One in the UK, followed by DOCTOR WHO CONFIDENTIAL: ABOUT A BOY at 7.45pm on BBC Three. NIGHT TERRORS also airs in the US on BBC America at 9/8 Central, and in Canada on SPACE at 8pm. If you live in Australia, look out for LET'S KILL HITLER tonight at 7.30pm.

Friday, 2 September 2011

Welcome to Cult Telly, the redesigned Bigger on the Inside.We now cover the whole range of cult TV, including shows like Outnumbered, Being Human, and the brand new BBC Three show The Fades, but the main priority will be to cover Doctor Who, Torchwood and Merlin :) Please leave a comment to give feedback :D ENJOY, and more updates will be coming soon

Hi again :) At the end of June, Bigger on the Inside got a major re-fit- now it's happening again and it's EVEN BIGGER THIS TIME! :) The new look will be coming tonight hopefully (more realistically, tomorrow) and I'll include a couple of announcements at 8.45pm tonight, to accompany the new look :) Come back at 8.45, when

Episode 9 of series six of Doctor Who Confidential, titled About A Boy, airs at 7.45pm on Saturday on BBC Three, after Night Terrors ends. Here's four clips from the episode, courtesy of Doctor Who TV:

Monday, 29 August 2011

Lots of coverage- This week is the first of three weeks where I'll be doing Torchwood coverage and Doctor Who coverage in the same week, resulting in a possible pile-up of overlapping coverage (but not really!) On Thursday, I'll do the regular coverage for Torchwood: Miracle Day episode 8 (pre episode round up, post episode reaction, The Next Day on Friday) and on Saturday I'll do a extended set of features to cover Doctor Who series 6 episode 9: Night Terrors (pre episode round up, previous episode recap, post episode reaction, next episode preview, The Next Day on Sunday, and a Sunday review.)

Rise of the Planet of the Apes review- I'll review the (fairly) new Planet of the Apes prequel: Rise of the Planet of the Apes sometime this week

Portal 2 video- I'll also be doing a gameplay video of Portal 2 this week also.

Merlin series four news- As the new series of Merlin is just over a month away (presuming that episode 1 airs on 8 October) I'll do a series 3 recap, and previews, plus titles and trailers.

And that's it for the week, come back next Sunday for another round-up for 5 September-11 September

Sunday, 21 August 2011

Welcome back to.. BIGGER ON THE INSIDE WEEKLY BLOG ROUND UP :) Here's what's coming up in the next five days:

A Little Expansion- Bigger on the Inside will be expanding to cover sci-fi films and games, but Doctor Who series 6 part 2, Torchwood: Miracle Day and Merlin series four news will remain my priority

Film reviews- As a result of the expansion, reviews for Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Super 8 should be done by Friday.

Let's Kill Hitler round up- A round up for Let's Kill Hitler will be done on Tuesday.

Torchwood coverage, but no Doctor Who- Coverage for episode seven of Torchwood: Miracle Day, Immortal Sins will be uploaded as usual, but coverage for Doctor Who won't be done this week, but coverage will resume as normal from episode 9, Night Terrors. Click here and here to have a look at my A Good Man Goes to War coverage on my first blog, Pre Titles Sequence.

And that's it, come back next Sunday for a round up for the week of 28 August-3 September :)

So, in the build-up to Merlin series 4, it's likely that we're going to see a few episode titles before the series begins (this isn't confirmed, last year the titles were revealed by the Radio Times 13 days before broadcast.) So far, we've got the title of the opening two-parter (Revival of the Witch) and it looks like another title has come out. So, here's the alleged title for series 4 episode 3:

AN UNCLE AND AN ENEMY.

It's from Merlin Wiki, not the most reliable source, so we can take this with a pinch of salt.

Thursday, 18 August 2011

So, after a slow burning, mildly entertaining, three-star hour of Torchwood, we've reached the point in Miracle Day where the plot needs a bit of a kickstart. Luckily, it has, with the force behind the Miracle Day (the Three Families *cough* *cough*) coming out to send Gwen a message on the contact lenses: 'We have your mother. We have your husband. We have your child.', and claiming that Gwen must bring them Jack to free her family. What will she do? Judging by the next time trailer, she's already made her mind up:

The Next Day returns tomorrow for clips, a review round up, and overnight ratings.

The BBC Press Office has released the official synopsis for Doctor Who series 6 episode 9: Night Terrors:

The Doctor receives a distress call from the scariest place in the Universe: a child’s bedroom, as the time-travelling drama continues.

Every night George lies awake, terrorised by every fear you can possibly imagine – fears that live in his bedroom cupboard. His parents are getting desperate – George needs a doctor.

Fortunately for George, his desperate pleas for help break through the barriers of all time and space and the Doctor makes a house call. But allaying his fears won’t be easy; because George’s monsters are real.

The Doctor is played by Matt Smith, George by Jamie Oram, Amy by Karen Gillan and Rory by Arthur Darvill.

Night Terrors airs on Saturday 3rd September on BBC One and BBC One HD at a yet-to-be-confirmed time. It will also air in the USA and Canada on the same day.

Following on from the reveal of the UK air date yesterday, the Radio Times has announced that Doctor Who will return in Let's Kill Hitler at 7.10pm- the latest episode start in the Matt Smith era. It will run for 50 minutes, followed immediately by an as-yet-untitled edition of Doctor Who Confidential from 8pm-8.45pm. It's possible that the late start may be to accommodate episodes of Merlin series 4 (when it begins) at an earlier time in the evening.

Tuesday, 16 August 2011

Finally, the UK air date for Doctor Who series 6 part 2 has been released! It's returning on Saturday 27 August (the time is rumoured to be 6.10pm) with episode 8: Let's Kill Hitler on BBC One and BBC One HD. The air dates for Let's Kill Hitler are as follows (in order of broadcast):

UK- Saturday 27 August on BBC One (time unconfirmed)

US- Saturday 27 August on BBC America at 9pm

Canada- Saturday 27 August on SPACE at 8pm

Australia- Saturday 3rd September at 7.30pm

And here's the air dates for the six episodes of part 2 (for UK, America, Canada):

Episode 8: Let's Kill Hitler- Saturday 27 August

Episode 9: Night Terrors- Saturday 3 September

Episode 10: The Girl Who Waited- Saturday 10 September

Episode 11- The God Complex- Saturday 17 September

Episode 12: Closing Time (rumoured title)- Saturday 24 September

Episode 13: The Wedding (rumoured title)- Saturday 1 October

Full Doctor Who coverage will be uploaded as each episode is broadcast (barring episode 8, I'm missing the broadcast.)

Monday, 1 August 2011

Hello again. Sorry for the three-day gap between posts, I won't do it again (unless I'm on holiday, as I am from tomorrow to 15 August, or just away!) It's August already, Bigger on the Inside's third month of blogging (half of June, all of July, and now August), so here's a preview of what's coming up in August for the blog, and on TV.

Torchwood: Miracle Day continues on BBC One on Thursdays throughout August- Escape to LA, The Categories of Life, The Middle Men and Immortal Sins (episodes 4-7) will air this month. Due to holiday, coverage for episodes 4 & 5 will not happen, but coverage will resume as normal for episodes 6-10.

Doctor Who series 6 part 2 begins in the US on BBC America and in Canada on SPACE on Saturday 27th August with Let's Kill Hitler. The UK date is yet to be confirmed, but it's very likely that Let's Kill Hitler will air on Saturday 27th August on BBC One at around 6pm. I do remember saying that about Torchwood, but it's more likely that it will air first in the UK, since it's an 100% British show

A midseason Torchwood: Miracle Day will be uploaded on Thursday 18th, ahead of the broadcast of The Middle Men, detailing what's to come in the second half of the series.

I'll also do a Doctor Who series 6 part 1 recap in the week of the UK broadcast.

Thursday, 28 July 2011

Wow! So, after what was the best episode of Torchwood: Miracle Day so far, Oswald Danes is fast becoming a hero in society, while the Torchwood team have to, hence episode four's title, Escape to LA. A clip can be found here, and SFX and Den of Geek's reactions are here, and here. Overnight ratings, the next time trailer, a review and a review round up will appear in a brand new feature called The Next Day tomorrow.

Having missed out on the dates I set myself for reviews for the opening two episodes of Torchwood: Miracle Day, The New World and Rendition, here's a double review to make up for the delay. First, episode 1: The New World.

4.1 Miracle Day: The New World Review

There were lots of doubt about whether the British/American co-production struck between the BBC and American premium cable channel Starz (hello, lucky Starz viewers! Enjoy episode 4 tomorrow) to resurrect Torchwood for a fourth series, and I'm sure that many people still had those doubts after the ending credits of The New World rolled. However, I didn't have many doubts in the first place, and all of those doubts were eradicated on watching the episode. Russell T Davies served up a fantastic script (up with Army of Ghosts/Doomsday as his best yet) with a right mix of humour, action, gore (a lot of gore, the burned body was DISGUSTING), sci fi stuff, and disturbing stuff (yes, I'm looking at you, Bill Pullman.) The returning actors- John Barrowman, Eve Myles, and Kai Owen shone as Captain Jack Harkness, Gwen Cooper, and Rhys Williams, and the new actors (Mekhi Phifer, Alexa Havins, Arlene Tur and Bill Pullman as Rex Matheson, Esther Drummond, Dr. Vera Juarez and Oswald Danes) were all great, especially the underused but utterly creepy Bill Pullman. Gwen and Rhys' baby Anwen didn't do much, being a baby, but was very cute :) So, overall, the first episode of Miracle Day was a resounding success!
VERDICT: 9/10

4.2 Miracle Day: Rendition Review
Into the second episode of the season, and it's a slight drop in quality, and pace. The first episode felt exciting, and filmic, and Rendition is, well, more like a typical US sci-fi episode. However, despite the faults in this episode, it was still gripping telly. The main event of the episode, Captain Jack's poisoning, was a thrilling sequence but felt a little like padding out an episode that was never truly necessary to the plot arc of Miracle Day. The scenes on the ground fared a little better, with some intriguing discussions about the ramifications of Miracle Day involving Vera Juarez, and the introduction of the brilliant Lauren Ambrose as the evil PR, Jilly Kitzinger. Elsewhere, Alexa Havins proves that she can really act as she realises that the CIA are turning against Esther, the character of Rex acts like a bigoted idiot sadly, and Bill Pullman makes Oswald Danes that but more creepy, with a riveting performance. Overall, it's a step back but Torchwood: Miracle Day is still top-notch TV- sci-fi that non-sci-fi fans can enjoy too.
VERDICT: 7/10
Tomorrow it's the Dead of Night review

Last night, many new details, plus a promo picture and trailer (!) were revealed about part two of series 6 of Doctor Who, at the San Diego Comic Con, here's a round up:

Trailer

Promo Picture:

AIR DATE: Saturday 27th August at 9pm on BBC America. The BBC air date hasn't been revealed yet, but it's very likely that it will air on BBC One on the same day, as it was for the first five episodes of Part 1 earlier this year. And if it isn't, the BBC have got a lot of explaining to do :)

Monday, 18 July 2011

www.crispian.net has posted a brilliant interactive Doctor Who tube map, complete with lines for each Doctor, symbols for recurring characters, all the monsters the Doctor has ever faced in a 'station' format, and many more features.

Today, Bigger on the Inside (formerly Anomaly to the Whoniverse) is one month old! Since the first post on Friday 17 June (missed it yesterday!), the blog has picked up 794 views, with 64 posts done over the month. Keep visiting the blog, to help it get to 1000 views!

Sunday, 17 July 2011

The first episode of the ten-part series Torchwood: Miracle Day aired in the UK on Thursday. Reviews have been written across the internet, and in the same style as the review round ups I did for Primeval series 5 in June, I will show you some of them. The weekly round ups- to be uploaded on Friday usually- won't cover the dozens of reviews written by US sites or newspapers, instead UK websites. Here's a selection of reviews for Torchwood: Miracle Day episode 1:

Saturday, 16 July 2011

Hello, and welcome to another weekly blog round up. Here's what's in store for the week of 17-22 July:

Torchwood review- A review for episode 1 of Torchwood: Miracle Day will be uploaded tomorrow. Torchwood reviews will not be filmed, instead typed. The episode 2 review will be uploaded on Sunday 24.

Doctor Who reviews- Reviews for Day of the Moon + Curse of the Black Spot will be uploaded Sunday and Monday 24 and 25 July The Doctor's Wife, The Rebel Flesh and The Almost People reviews will be uploaded in the week of 25-29 July, and the A Good Man Goes to War review will follow in the second half of August

More Aliens- The prologue for episode 1 of my brand new Doctor Who parallel series, Aliens was uploaded this week, and the series proper will start tomorrow, with the rest of episode 1 and the remaining episodes being uploaded between late July and mid September

Torchwood: Miracle Day Episode 2 Coverage (NOT GUARANTEED)- Coverage for Torchwood: Miracle Day episode 2, Rendition should be as it was for episode 1 this week, (pre episode round up, post episode round up, trailers, overnight ratings, consolidated figures for episode 1) but it may not happen.

Lack of posts from Tuesday to Sunday- Tomorrow and the day after, the blog will post as normal, but from Tuesday to Sunday, the blog's posting will be limited. I should be able to do Torchwood coverage and a couple of other posts, but the normal news and YouTube Corner videos won't be uploaded

That's it for this week, next time it's the week of 24-29 July, with Torchwood: Miracle Day news and coverage, Doctor Who reviews, Aliens stories and all the regular posts and news

The UK première of Torchwood: Miracle Day got 4.83 million overnight viewers yesterday. This is over a million down on the opener of Children of Earth, but since Miracle Day is airing weekly, not in a special 'event' five day slot, it's not bad for the summer months. However, there is a chance that the UK figure was damaged by viewers downloading the episode.

Thursday, 14 July 2011

So, that was eventful! With the reunited Torchwood team being extradited to the USA, the next episode is well set up, with Gwen and Jack on a rendition flight to the USA. My quick thoughts on episode 1 was that it was a very confident, exciting opener, which left me excited for more Torchwood. The 3 minute series trailer (already posted here) which was seen on iTunes this week aired at the end, with some tantalising clips from the rest of the series. Here's the trailer:

SFX and Den of Geek have reviewed the episode here and here, both positive reviews. I'll post a UK review round up tomorrow, along with overnight ratings and my own review. Next Time, TORCHWOOD: MIRACLE DAY: Rendition at 9pm on BBC One in the UK.

It's the day of the UK première of Torchwood: Miracle Day Episode 1. Here's a synopses plus clips and trailers from the BBC for tonight's episode:

BBC Press Office Synopsis

One day, nobody dies. All across the world, nobody dies. And then the next day, and the next, and the next, people keep ageing – they get hurt and sick, but they never die. The result: a population boom, overnight.

With all the extra people, resources are finite. It’s said that in four month's time, the human race will cease to be viable. But this can’t be a natural event – someone’s got to be behind it. It’s a race against time as CIA agent Rex Matheson investigates a global conspiracy. The answers lie within an old, secret British institute. As Rex keeps asking: "What is Torchwood?", he’s drawn into a world of adventure, and a threat to change what it means to be human ... for ever.

In the launch episode of Torchwood: Miracle Day, Agent Rex Matheson is impaled in a car crash and miraculously survives, while his analyst, Esther Drummond, sets out to discover what Torchwood is. Far away, in Wales, Gwen Cooper lives in hiding with her husband Rhys and daughter Anwen – she’s the last surviving Torchwood member and is determined to stay hidden. In Kentucky, convicted murderer Oswald Danes survives his own execution. And when Esther meets the mysterious Captain Jack Harkness, assassins are activated to kill them all...

Clips

Trailer

TORCHWOOD: MIRACLE DAY episode 1 airs at 9pm on BBC1 tonightUPDATE: What you can expect from Bigger on the Inside in the post-episode round up at 10pm tonight:Trailers for episode 2/ Rendition- This week, I've posted a US next time for Rendition on the Torchwood trailers page, but it's likely that the UK trailer will be different, and I'll upload the UK trailer
What you thought- I'll do a poll on what you thought of episode 1
And I'll post the overnight ratings tomorrow at 11am, and the consolidated figures next Friday

Wednesday, 13 July 2011

The second series of the popular series of Doctor Who computer games, the Adventure Games, as announced last year, have begun recording. The Doctor Who Twitter page released a series of tweets recently- the first info we got on the fifth Adventure Game- here are the tweets:

'Just got back from day in studio with Matt Smith recording the next Adventure Game. His lines include 'Imperial' and 'duck''

'Matt's performance is alive with energy. Hook him up to the national grid and he could power the UK for a fortnight. Will be the best Ad Game yet'

The BBC then released a report on the recording- you can read it here. Highlights from the article are here.